UK Quarterly Energy Production / Usage / Prices- Production & Usage down and Prices up

Energy Trends and Q3 2006 Quarterly Energy Figures and Prices were published by the DTI today - fascinating - but extraction of meaningful information is tedious , here are the edited highlights.

Energy Trends has articles on:
"World production, consumption, reserves and trade in natural gas"

World gas reserves are estimated to be about 180 trillion cubic metres or 62 years of production at 2005 rates. Russia has 27 %, Iran 15 %, and Qatar 14 %t (Where US CENTCOM is located) . 23% of gas is transported as LNG = 100% in Japan.

"Electricity transmission across Europe in 2004".

Detailed information from the International Energy Agency's "Electricity Information" volume which shows that within the EEA only 1% of electricity is imported,but flows between countries can be very large and significant - and result in major disruptions as has been seen in the last two years . Emphasising the synergy between countries such as France, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the Slovak Republic are very important to the integrity of the European grid.

The UK imports less than 3 per cent of its electricity consumption and exports only 1/2 per cent of its production - solely with France.

As a Very Important adjunct to reading this, Europe’s principal grid authority the "Union for the Co-ordination of Transmission of Electricity" (UCTE) published a detailed interim report into the grid disturbance that left 15 million households without power, and came close to resulting in a pan-European blackout in the autumn. UTE reported that " the causes of the event were multi-factorial, but that the key trigger was an unexpected rise in the load on the Landesbergen-Wehrendorf grid link, which joins the grid control areas of E.ON Netz and RWE. The precise causes of this increase are at present not clear, or have not yet been published, but the role of an unpredicted rise in wind generation (documented by E.ON Netz) appears to be a potentially important feature." Further more UCTE makes it clear that the subsequent behaviour of uncontrollable wind generation was a significant factor in the development of the crisis and the difficulties that the grid operators experienced in restoring the service. UCTE notes (p. 25) that 60% of wind units tripped in response to the emerging crisis, and then began automatically reconnecting (p. 26ff) exacerbating an already grave situation (p. 30). The E.on / Netz report into the event is available here

All of which might indicate , that at last, someone should be wakening up to the threats to UK Energy Security and place less reliance on wind power ..... See FOOTNOTE

As well as these articles, there are tedious self congratulatory details of changes in reporting to meet the DTI's commitment (which have holes in due to the sell off of the National Grid) in the February 2003 Energy White Paper to produce more information at regional and local level - for what it's worth.

The UK Quarterly Energy statistics for the 3rd Quarter of 2006 throws up some startling comparisons with the same Quarter in 2005 (to which all comparisons relate) ;

1 Indigenous production of primary fuels was 42.4 Mn. tonnes of oil equivalent (TOE) a reduction of 7.8%

2. Energy consumption was 1.9 % lower

3. Consumption on a primary fuel input basis (on a Seasonally adjusted
and temperature corrected - annual rate ) 220.0 was 220.0 Mn TOE up a marginal 0.4%.

4.Other solid fuel (coal, petcoke,biofuels) consumption rose by 21.2 %.

5 Oil consumption decreased by 1.8 per cent.

6 Gas consumption fell by 5.2 per cent.

7 Primary electricity consumption decreased by 7.1 per cent.

Noticeably the generators are shovelling coal as long as possible whilst they can and keeping gas production in mothballs - lower input costs using well depreciated plant and minimal maintenance. It also suggests that the impact of higher consumer and industry prices is having an effect on consumption. Which is not suprising as squirelled away are the figures for Domestic fuel prices ...

Overall the price paid for all fuel and light by household consumers has risen by 25.1 % in real terms between Q3 2005 and Q3 2006, the highest rate in the last 30 years.

Domestic electricity prices, including VAT, in Q3 2006, were 22.4 per cent higher in real terms than in Q3 2005. The price of domestic gas rose by 34.2 per cent in real terms over the same period, with the price of heating oils rising by 5.4 per cent.

Estimates from the International Energy Agency suggest that in October 2006, UK domestic electricity and gas prices, including taxes, remained below the EU15 median although average annual gas bills rose 19.8% (approx £87 per household) and electricity 15.7 % ( £55 per household) year on year. ( i.e wholesale prices at the Year end still have to work through into Quarterly bills). Many UK Domestic consumers have operated on capped and fixed length tariffs many of which end in Jan 2007. See BBC Story here So many consumers can expect a very sharp increase in prices in the first 2007 Quarterly bill.

Broken down into their constituent parts the figures produced show ;

COAL: QUARTER 3 2006

1. Provisional figures for Q3 2006 show coal production down 24.1 % at 3.6 Mn Tonnes (deep mined production 23.4% down and opencast 25.6% down..

2. Whilst coal imports grew 18.8 % at 13.0 million tonnes, a new quarterly record.

3 Coal consumption for Q3 2006 was up 18.5% @ 13.5 million tonnes ( electricity generators consumption up 23% in period)

4. Coal stock rose 3 MN tonnes to 18.5 Mn tonnes (say 4 months usage)

Remember the heady days when we used to dig this stuff out of the ground ? Mrs Thatcher's Reganomics put an end to that old son.

OIL: (Crude + NGL's) QUARTER 3 2006

1 Total indigenous UK oil production down by 10.2 % to 17.3 million tonnes. 2 new fields started up in September - insufficient to make up for production declines in older fields.

2. Again the UK was a net importer of oil and oil products in Q3 2006 by 2.5 Mn tonnes. (Q3 2005 = 2.3 Mn tonnes)

3 Overall primary demand for oil products in Q3 2006 was down 2.6 %.(19.9 Mn tonnes)

4. Motor spirit (petrol) fell 2.4 % = 4.63 Mn tonnes)
Derv rose by 5.8 % = 5.2 Mn tonnes (God knows what it was in Northern Ireland where dodging duty is a 3rd religion)
Aviation turbine fuel was down by 1.8 % = 3.52 Mn tonnes

Road fuel Prices show that in mid December a litre of unleaded petrol was on average 87.4 pence per litre unchanged from a year earlier and Derv was 93.0 pence per litre, 1.2 pence per litre higher than a year earlier. which gave "green" Gordon a chance to add a penny or so on the duty with impunity.

GAS: (Terawatt hours TWh) QUARTER 3 2006

1 UK indigenous production of natural gas in Q3 2006 was down 2.4 %

2. UK was a net importer Q3 2005 (9.3 Twh) and moved into being a net exporter again in Q3 2006 ( 1.9 Twh) exports and imports of natural gas increased by 62.8 % and 14.2 %.

3 Demand for gas in Q3 2006 was down 10.3 %.

4 Gas use (Provisional figures) for electricity generation was down 11.7 % and domestic use 11.4%

ELECTRICITY (TWh) : QUARTER 3 2006

1 Electricity generators fuel consumption was down by 1.1% and electricity supplied (77.4 TWh) .was 0.5% lower than Q3 2005 (Domestic (23.76 TWh) down 0.5% / Industrial (23.76 TWh) 0.2% down / others - street lights, telecomms etc., (23.36 TWh) down 0.4% )

2. Coal usage was up 22.9 %
Gas use was down 11.6 %
Nuclear production was down 8.1 % ( maintenance and outages)
"Renewable Hydro" was down 6.1%

3. For those curious to know wind , energy has an installed capacity of 630 MW which mean (if 30% efficient - which is optimistic) = 210 MW see British Windy Energy Association site
experience is starting to show that production from wind farms is never at the level forecast before the projects begin.

Also see Renewable Energy Foundation reports on wind farms 9/12/06 - report on actual data via ROC's claimed. (actual efficiency UK wide = 28.4%) Quote "the new research offers predictions which are in keeping with Danish and German empirical experience and demonstrate the need for a broader spread of investment in the renewable sector"

Remember ! Indirect subsidy approaching £1 billion a year is being channelled towards renewable energy by the Government’s Renewables Obligation - wind farms, farm ROC's, not wind.

ENERGY PRICES: QUARTER 3 2006

1. In Q3 Average industrial gas prices, were 20.0 % higher in real terms compared to Q3 2005 (incl CCL) coal was lower by 10.5% and heavy fuel oil up 10%.

2 In Q3 Average industrial electricity prices were 27.9 % higher in real terms, in Q3 2006 compared to Q3 2005.(incl CCL)

3 The International Energy Agency provisiona figures suggest that in 2005, average UK industrial gas prices were below the EU/G7 median, and industrial electricity prices were around the EU/G7 median.

4 DTI Estimates suggest that in October 2006, industrial gas and electricity prices in the UK including taxes were above the EU15 median for all consumers available from this source.

If you want more - Energy Trends and the Quarterly Energy Prices bulletins, are available in hard copy from DTI on subscription, price £40 per annum or are available for downloading at http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/statistics/publications/index.html

Subscription form is also available @ http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/statistics/publications/trends/index.html

More detailed annual data on energy production and consumption for the years 2000 to 2005 are available in the DIGEST OF UNITED KINGDOM ENERGY STATISTICS 2006, published by the Stationery Office on 27 July 2006, priced £39.50. or @ http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/statistics/publications/dukes/page29812.html

FOOTNOTE

The well scrubbed and smartly dressed, but remarkably dumb, Mike O' Brien, one of the many short lived New Labour Energy Ministers 25.10.04, Hansard
“To achieve that target, we need to make use of all renewable sources. We expect 7 or 8 per cent. of the 10 per cent. generation to come from wind energy. Other technologies will be hard pushed to produce the rest.”